What a lovely day!

What a lovely day! My writing friends and I take ourselves of on writing retreats a couple of times a year, most recently to Lynmouth at the end of January. Today we had a small jaunt to a city closer to hand and just for the day, we went to Bath. One of our number had never been to this ancient city, once known as Aqua Sulis by the Romans who established a health centre there – then known as the Roman baths fed by geothermal springs. It had been a shrine and place of significance to the pre-Roman locals, the Dobunni. The city became famous more recently in the eighteenth century it became a popular place with stunning architecture, the baths, fed by hot springs, once more becoming a popular place.

We had little interest today in exploring the history of the place, we were more interested in the bookshops and tea rooms. We did do a fair amount of wanderings around the lovely city, round the outside of the magnificent abbey, down the little alleyways, through the covered market, along by the river, across Pulteney Bridge with its shops beneath which flows the River Avon, and along the other side of the river. We stopped first of all at Sally Lunn’s Eating House. No-one knows if Sally Lunn actually existed, but the building where the shop sells the legendary buns is very old; part of the lowest floor level and a brick oven in the basement, dates to about 1137 when there was reconstruction of the abbey after a great fire. Sally Lunn the bun is a massive but light, slightly spongy bun – they are cut in half, and one half is more than enough! We all had savoury toppings as we’d had an early start and not much breakfast. I had salt beef which was delicious!

We visited four bookshops, and we remarked on the very friendly and helpful staff in each which added to our enjoyment of being in a favourite place.  We went to Mr B’s Emporium of Delights, Topping & Co., Skoob Books and Persephone Books, and we all purchased at least one thing in each. I was in a poetry frame of mind and bought these:

• The Yak Dilemma – Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal
• The Pocket Rumi
• Poems – C. P. Cavafy

Altogether it was a wonderful day, and fortified by tea and cake, we caught the train home after a circuitous and rather lovely walk back to the station along the river. A most satisfactory day!